[Christer]

You need a new dealer mate That said i'm on my way to buy the M-scaler now

Let's call it a draw then, shall we?

I should have said nearly half price not half price. But it seems the benefits of the Mscaler are gradually dawning on you too.
Did you listen to something acoustic?
Enjoy the Dave/HMS. I Hope you will also find a suitable upgrade to the not so good BNC cables that will come with your HMS.
Cheers CC

 

[HeeBroG]

Dave/HMS directly clipping with large scale orchestral non compressed classical music with both Susvara and Utopia and even HEKV2 in my experience is NOT nice to hear and apart from the very high price asked imho one of the main reasons I have personally, not bought a Dave.

Hi Christer,

I find it extraordinary that you heard clipping with DAVE driving Utopia directly. What volume level do you play at?
Do you recall the track you played?

I personally can't go beyond -15dB on DAVE with Utopia. It is simply too loud.
I understand DAVE can go to +3dB without Mscaler and +5dB with before reaching maximum output for music recorded at 0dBFS.

 

[ecwl]

This is interesting for a future Dave :
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amd-agrees-to-buy-rival-chip-maker-xilinx-for-35-billion-11603794663

Yes. This is fascinating. Perhaps less so for the DAVE thread. Because I suspect the primary reason why we can't have a Mojo/Hugo 2 with more taps and better noise-shaping is because they are still on 28nm FPGA, as compared to my iPhone 12 Pro which is now on 5nm process. Now, there is no guarantee that costs for FPGA would come down. In fact, it might go up. Even though Xilinx has 20nm and 16nm FPGAs, I think Rob Watts has said currently, it is too cost prohibitive to develop DACs with them, in addition to other issues associated with these products for DACs. Or they might even discontinue FPGAs that are suitable for DACs because they're not sufficiently profitable. It's always hard to know. Moreover, some of Chord DAC thermal issues are also related to the Pulse Array DAC and the total number of elements in it, rather than the FPGA in use.
At the end of the day, I'd like to remain optimistic and that we are going to get higher performing portable DACs at lower costs from Chord. But as with most mergers and acquisitions, I suspect we won't see the end results for a few more years.

 

[JaZZ]

I really hope that the new amps Rob is apparently working on currently will be the solution to Dave's real Achilles Heel especially when used with the Mscaler and several of the difficult to drive highend headphones mentioned earlier in this thread.
And if I understand things correctly there won't even be any need for a Dave if one already owns an Mscaler?

Dave/HMS directly clipping with large scale orchestral non compressed classical music with both Susvara and Utopia and even HEKV2 in my experience is NOT nice to hear and apart from the very high price asked imho one of the main reasons I have personally, not bought a Dave.
I chose to compromise a bit on ultimate transparency in comparison to DAVE /HMS but I am very happy with the Mscaler, the advantage of it is so immmediately obvious to me over no Mscaler and with all Chord dacs I auditioned it with that I just can't think of using any Chord dac including DAVE, without it.
For me the Mscaler is absolutely THE most important link in the currently available Chord digital products chain.
Dave was and in most respects still is an amazing product but it also needs Mscaling to really shine imho.
With the Mscaler Dave can deliver really SOTA territory, digital reproduction but not without it imho.
But for those only listening via headphones who knows? Maybe the recently announced T+A HA200 headphone amp dac combo which not only just as Dave/HMS upscales ALL pcm formats to 768khz!!!! but also plays NATIVE DSD up to DSD 1024 with windows.
Could it be the challenge to Dave alone many have been waiting for from the competition?
I prefer to let my ears be the ultimate judge of SQ but it seems HIFI News where mightily impressed with the T+A HA200 in combination both with T+A's own headphone and also said that they had never heard the Oppo PM1 sound better than via the HA200!
The HA200 retails from around 6k€,which is about half price of Dave and can allegedly comfortably drive ANY headphone on the market except electrostatics and possibly the SRH1A ?
For basically the same price as a Dave one could buy both a HA200 AND T+A's planar headphone which apparently compares quite favourably with the Utopia according to some listeners.
PS. I hope I haven't upset too many of you. I just felt like stirring the pot here a bit again it's been a while.

Personally I am frankly still very happy with my humble Qutest/HMS combo with Wave Storm BNCs and via my big electrostatic speakers I had an almost eargasmic, very sensual listening experience enjoying Anoushka Shankar's amazing album RISE as 16/44.1 rbcd this morning.
No other digital product I've heard so far, makes well recorded 16/44.1 as enjoyable as the Mscaler!
I am all with Rob as far as the Mscaler is concerned. Once heard in a good system and with well recorded acoustic music, there's simply no going back to anything less than 1M taps mscaling for me.

Cheers CC

Hi Christer

Some time ago I've asked you to send me the respective files (or excerpts), but for some reason it didn't happen.

Hi Christer,

I find it extraordinary that you heard clipping with DAVE driving Utopia directly. What volume level do you play at?
Do you recall the track you played?

I personally can't go beyond -15dB on DAVE with Utopia. It is simply too loud.
I understand DAVE can go to +3dB without Mscaler and +5dB with before reaching maximum output for music recorded at 0dBFS.

I say it's impossible for the DAVE to clip with the Utopia. It anything, it's his ear drums clipping.

 

[Rob Watts]

AMD buying Xilinx for $35 billion - that doesn't make any kind of financial sense. Xilinx annual revenues are only $3 billion...

 

[adrianm]

AMD buying Xilinx for $35 billion - that doesn't make any kind of financial sense. Xilinx annual revenues are only $3 billion...

Looks like they were stashing those good FPGA's under the mattress
I read they were working together on datacenter stuff, maybe there's some valuable IP on Xilinx' side.

 

[adrianm]

Let's call it a draw then, shall we?

I should have said nearly half price not half price. But it seems the benefits of the Mscaler are gradually dawning on you too.
Did you listen to something acoustic?
Enjoy the Dave/HMS. I Hope you will also find a suitable upgrade to the not so good BNC cables that will come with your HMS.
Cheers CC

Thanks, well they were apparent once i got the optical cable mess sorted out, and even more so after it was gone. From a bang for buck perspective i maintain that it makes little sense but i've just resigned to the fact that few things in this hobby do. I was also swayed by how much more i liked the stock psu than the Farad Super 3 (though i get that some people have opposing views).
Thanks i'll get to the BNC cables later. In case anyone's interested it seems M-scalers have just barely surpassed Dave's in sales, based on the S/N .
Edit : my bad, around 1k to go.

 

[Christer]

AMD buying Xilinx for $35 billion - that doesn't make any kind of financial sense. Xilinx annual revenues are only $3 billion...

What if Xilinx had something "cooking" we don't know about but AMD does and just could not resist?
How many taps did you say it would take to deliver full 24 bit accuracy again?
256 M?

Cheers CC

 

[koven]

AMD buying Xilinx for $35 billion - that doesn't make any kind of financial sense. Xilinx annual revenues are only $3 billion...

That's a shortsighted factor in a strategic long play like this though, they're expecting significant synergies and exposure. Xilinx has their foot in a breadth of markets that AMD can leverage and build upon. Only time will tell if this expensive hail mary was genius or not. I'd have some faith in what Lisa Su is planning though. AMD was on the cusp of collapse when she took over and today they're exponentially more relevant.

 

[lovethatsound]

Hi Christer,

I find it extraordinary that you heard clipping with DAVE driving Utopia directly. What volume level do you play at?
Do you recall the track you played?

I personally can't go beyond -15dB on DAVE with Utopia. It is simply too loud.
I understand DAVE can go to +3dB without Mscaler and +5dB with before reaching maximum output for music recorded at 0dBFS.

You guys like your music very loud,,when I use my utopia with the dave it's anywhere from -44 to -35 and that's loud.

 

[adrianm]

Well apparently M-scalers are like kids. They're better when they're yours. And when you keep power cables away from the rest of them.
That said, i find myself listening at 8-9 db louder than the test m-scaler on the same tracks. Anyone have any idea what's happening? I am using different BNC sockets but that should make no difference (unless you listen to Audiobacon, who claims 3,and 4 sound best, which is coincidentally what i'm using ).
Edit : Apparently Tidal reset some of the settings, everything is back to normal.

 

[Christer]

Hi Christer

Some time ago I've asked you to send me the respective files (or excerpts), but for some reason it didn't happen.



I say it's impossible for the DAVE to clip with the Utopia. It anything, it's his ear drums clipping.

Hmm, I can't remember you asking me for any files, but one very obvious example I still remember was the cd layer of SSO's SACD recording of Rachmaninov's 2nd symphony on BIS and it was only Dave WITH the Mscaler that clipping occurred with the Utopia.
Utopia sounded quite good and no clipping, but not ideal via Dave alone.
I was and am still referring to Dave /HMS!
That's when things got really tough for Dave .
If I remember correctly HMS "steals" 3dB from Dave's already not very efficient amping.

But it sounded clearly better and quite close to how I'd heard it both live in the hall and via the ADC used at sessions, and via Dave/HMS and the Woo Audio 33 headphone amp.
though.
Like most BIS productions from there and elsewhere, it is an excellent example of how to record a symphonic work realistically.
With Susvara and no headphone amp, clipping was even more obvious with HMS in the equation.
An absolute no go combination,with such non compressed large scale classical music recordings imho.

By the way, the same recording sounds very nice indeed even via my humble Qutest/HMS and either of my three headphone amps by the way ,absolutely no signs of clipping.
And via my 900 watts per channel amp and electrostatic speakers its a real stunner though rivalled by BIS's 24/96 files of Rach's 1st symphony which has got some very loud but absolutely clean climaxes with enough amping.


Cheers CC

 

[Christer]

You guys like your music very loud,,when I use my utopia with the dave it's anywhere from -44 to -35 and that's loud.

For clarification I both was and I am still referring to Dave WITH the Mscaler, not Dave alone regarding the Utopia.
But even on its own I sometimes preferred Dave with a separate headphone amp with several headphones and complex demanding large scale symphonic material.

I still remember what the Singapore Chord rep once said regarding Dave even before Mscaler was on the horizon.
"It really comes to life with a good headphone amp.
And with the HMS that is imho unfortunately a fact for me, with some difficult to drive headphones.
Cheers CC

 

[JaZZ]

Can you send me the Wave or Flac file from this Rachmaninov SACD's CD layer – via cloud (and PM)?

The M Scaler doesn't steal 3 dB from the DAVE's output power, it just reduces the gain – power stays the same.

...And with the HMS that is imho unfortunately a fact, with some difficult to drive headphones.
Cheers CC

The M Scaler definitely has nothing to do with the clipping – that's what the gain reduction is meant for (→ padding against potential clipping). So I suspect it may be the increased signal accuracy that makes some critical sound patterns more obvious than without it and via additional amplification.

Personally I've never heard clipping from the DAVE that's not on the recording. And I like to listen fairly loud.

 

[Christer]

Can you send me the Wave or Flac file from this Rachmaninov SACD's CD layer – via cloud (and PM)?

The M Scaler doesn't steal 3 dB from the DAVE's output power, it just reduces the gain – power stays the same.


The M Scaler definitely has nothing to do with the clipping – that's what the gain reduction is meant for (→ padding against potential clipping). So I suspect it may be the increased signal accuracy that makes some critical sound patterns more obvious than without it and via additional amplification.

Personally I've never heard clipping from the DAVE that's not on the recording. And I like to listen fairly loud.

Hello again Jazz, sorry, but I can't do that for you, its a copy-righted promo disc I got directly from the SSO, a disc which I am not allowed to send anyone digital copies of like that.
But I can recommend that you buy it, or for that matter, their recording of Rach's 1st symphony which is an even better recording than the SACD BIS 1712 of the 2nd symphony. BIS1712 is a native 24/44.1 recording and the 1st which I can't remember the disc number of now, I only have it as download, is a native 24/96 recording.
And yes as expected 24/96 sounds better than 24/44.1 in this case.
More effortless and more realistic via my Mscaler.
Both are available for download as native hi res files from e.Classical.com
But I only used the 16/44.1 layer of the SACD disc they had just given me during some of those early DAVE/ BLU2 /HMS tests.
Nor do I suspect the Mscaler to have been the culprit as such, on the contrary its truly the "Saviour" when even Dave alone is not quite enough with really complex and really busy, richly scored acoustic music.

Regarding the clipping or overload it seems you are still misunderstanding what I said. It WAS directly and without additional amping that clipping or overload occurred via Dave/HMS and was also confirmed by staff at two different shops as well.
The problem as I heard it was quite an obvious case of not enough watts/ raw power or voltage / current or a combination of both?
Reproduction was anything but the effortless SQ I had expected.

I am not a tech guy as you know, but some really nasty distortions was what I could hear at climaxes without the extra amping.
Additional amping both via two different WOO Audio amps and another brand I can't remember the name of, actually cured the problem!

Instant Wow, yes now this is what I had also expected from Dave/HMS on their own.
I had already been very impressed by a completely unexpected DGG early rbcd of Baroque music that I had never before heard reproduced even remotely so realistically as via DAVE/BLU2 and was expecting to be overwhelmed by a much more recent and better than DGG recording and one I already knew live from the hall.
But to my surprise the opposite happened.

And as I said in my earlier post, via my Qutest/HMS there are absolutely NO audible signs of any clipping ever, with any of my own amps with this recording or the VAST majority of other good recordings in my collection.

Maybe I am using a wrong term?maybe overload would better describe how Dave/HMS behaved unaided, when it couldn't cope with what it had been fed with difficult to drive headphones and without "A little help of a friend".
Whatever the correct term is, on both occasions it sounded quite nasty and very far from what I had expected.
The only other time I've been really disappointed by Dave/HMS was when the kid at the Chord desk at Canjam in Singapore I guess,had accidently connected the BNCs wrong or pressed the wrong buttons, and only reluctantly admitted having done anything wrong when Rob was called in and corrected things.
I kept telling him, "But for God's sake it is distorted bl.... mono can't you even hear that"? to no avail, until Rob arrived on the scene and saved the day.
Cheers CC